Abstract [en]

As an outcome of globalization, international education is facing both quantitative and qualitative future challenges. Quantitatively, global student cross-border mobility has doubled in the first decade of the 21st century and is expected to double in the decade ahead according to OECD predictions (2013). This calls for swift qualitative adaptation across the levels of the higher education sector in Europe and elsewhere in order to enable universities to adequately meet changing societal needs on the one hand and perceptively respond to globalization demands on the other.

Concurrently, international education as a social process is in need of regeneration and coherence. Research stresses further socially accountable and critical approaches to pedagogical investigations on international student care, intercultural competencies and transnational literacies, cross-cultural curriculum innovation, pedagogy and practice, intercultural integration and new technologies, policy documentation and management which demand research-informed educational approaches by bridging interdisciplinary academic communities of scholars. This presentation will address these issues from the perspective of progressing international aspects of higher education into possible futures.